THE RUSSIAN PEASANT

Evening Star, Issue 19784, 7 February 1928, Page 5

THE RUSSIAN PEASANT

MAHHERS THAT MEMORY RECALLS A SIMPLE FOLK [Written by Fanny Sciimehmann for the ‘ Evening Star.’] No. 1. Endless plains and fields, interminable waste, dazzling whiteness of crystalline snow, no human dwellings for miles and miles, sad, clouded skies, snowy storm, and a little dark spot amidst the scene, a sleigh gliding through heaps of snow, rattling, swaying through furrowed roads is the characteristic background of Russian landscape.

The bells of the sleigh ring monotonously in the mysterious silence of the waste, and the sung of the driver, a peasant, echoes and slowly dies in the indefinite distance. The snowy storm carries away a song without complaint, a song of a life without hope and light. It sounds mujecticaliy calm, desperately sad, savagely cheerful, and then again melancholy, like the puzzling waste itself.

There where the waste ends lies the peasant’s “ izba,” a timber-built cottage, straw-thatched, Sin above the earth, with square panes of glass instead of windows, through which glance the faintest rays of light. A door, a massive piece of timber-, conducts to the interior of the izba, which ote enters with a bent head towards the lop-sided trunk overarching the narrow entrance. There, in the entrance, flutter innumerable wings of buds; pigs rush headlong between goats and alarmed fowls. A room in tiro izba is filled with agricultural tools and implements; another one is full of dense fumes ol smoke and steam; a stove, a big block of white stone occupies one-third of the rooin. Besides giving warmth and vapor, it is used as a kitchener, on which everything is cooked, and a sort of open wardrobe. On its accommodating surface sleep during the night and long winter days men, women, and children. In the furthest corner of the izba, opposite the door, hangs a sacred image, a semi-pictorial half-length representation of the Madonna. In inch merchants’ houses, chests of these “ikons” are in silver, go)d,_ copper, or tin, but in peasants’ dwellings they are often dirty, badly painted, lustreless.

A lew stools, benches, boxes, end ;i table are the furniture of the room. On the walls there hang the portraits of Alexander 11., the liberator of the serfs, of the reigning Tsar, and pictures depicting the devil dealing out judgment to peasants after death for all their sins, those sins being pietonally represented. Extremely clean in the central regions, those izbas cry out even for the elementary principles of hygiene in the poor northern districts.

During the long winter days, when the soil is snow-bound during live or six months, the peasant falls into a state of hibernation. Sometimes lie leaves the native village and goes to town to apply a craft there. They form communal associations, “ artels,” choose their “eldest,” and work there all together on communal principles. There are wandering artels of builders, laborers, and others. In the most industrious central regions, whole villages arc engaged in industries, handmanufactures, carried out by such artels. An old-fashioned and skill perform wonders of work. There are villages which make lurniture, build carriages, make the well-known wooden spoons, baskets, toys, knives, forks, and agricultural implements; there, among other industries, Hourisk shoemaking, coopering, pottery, textile industry, and lacemaking. The peasant of Central Russia is ipiick as lightning, and a cunning, shrewd tradesman. Hero he stands at a corner of a street selling his fruits. “Pretty lady, buy my fruit. I am Ivan Ivanovitch, the old tradesman, and stand hero for years. My wife is ill, my children arc starving, and 1 haven’l. earned for the whole day a nenny.” A tear actually rolls down his weather-beaten cheeks. “ Buy my fruit, pretty lady; they arc really English, they arc German, and cost only two roubles. They are Spanish fruit, and good for your children.” He sells his fruit and laughs heartily. What a, rogue he is! Tie has neither wife nor children, and there is more than sufficient money, silver and brass coins, in his old purse. Not all peasants arc as energetic as the peasants of Central Russia. Most of the others arc overwhelmed with laziness, which is supposed to be a chronic Russian infirmity. At a market in the south, somewhere in Ukraine, one often secs under a cart, fdled with cucumbers, tomatoes, or fruits, a peasant lying at full length, hiding himself from the burning rays of the sun. The buyer has to use a great deal of eloquence to persuade him to creep out from his beloved place, and to sell him his goods. In the poor northern districts the climate, the frost, is the cause of the peasant’s inactivity. Day and night during six months ho ' lies on the white warm stove. When the winter is over and the short spring follows the peasant gets hurriedly ready for work. From the beginning to the end of the summer, from early dawn till dark, peasants and fanners, horses and oxen, are working almost incessantly in the fields. The only inhabitants in the village on a summer’s day arc a few old people, a swarm of half-clad children, who take care of one another, and an army of dogs that strongly resent the intrusion of a visitor. The peasant expects with great eagerness the lull before the harvest. The cars ol the corn, already formed, but still green, swing in the breeze, buckwheat covers the soil, the odor of the manure mingles with the perfume of the pastures. Through the length and breadth of the country there is one great dread; the harvest may pass and not save the people. The peasant works in the field twelve till sixteen hours. At certain hours he turns to the east to say his prayers, and then ho takes his meal.' which is brought by his children in a bundle. Rye bread, fermented cabbage in the ionn of a soup, and kvass (a national drink prepared of water, barley meal, mixed with salt and honey), complete his hire. After the poor meal he stretches himself out on the mowed grass, sleeps for a while, and then starts work again. The peasants work in the fields also in groups, conducted by their “eldest.” They do not begin to mow. hay, or plough until the village assembly has passed its resolution on the matter. The village assembly is in the peasant’s estimation God’s own judgment. On Sundays, near the church, in an open space, the representatives of the families, who form the village assembly, meet and discuss communal matters" After discussions, during which all the peasants talk at the same time, the “eldest” of the assembly asks: “Ye orthodox, what did you decide?” These assemblies had neither written laws nor written resolutions. During the reign of Nicholas the first attempt was made to introduce them, and also voting by ballots, but the new custom never struck root.

The peasant called balloting “ playing marbles.” Women were seldom members or these assemblies. The peasant had no confidence in their intelligence, in “ long hair and short mind.” There often recurs a. scene in the assembly when the pea. t woman, the baba, declares that she will agree with the resolution of the assembly concerning the apportionment of land to her. But she never agrees to the apportionment; a flow of tears, lamentations, and of unexpected eloquence follows, until she gets her wish. Children are playing, and a group of boys and girls from sixteen till eighteen standing near the assembly, criticise the members and proceedings in a most provoking way. Shouts of gay laughter fill the air, but a solidlooking matron, who has noticed the fuu-makor, a boy of eighteen, says: “You, possessed by Cain; you are of age; it would be time for you to marry, instead of joking with girls.” Marriage is a thing of great importance in the peasant’s life; it adds a new worker to the family. Tho father of a lad of eighteen begins usually to observe the girls of tho village, especially those who are strong of wind and limb. Festivals are then arranged in tile villages, to which drive men, women, girls, and lads from all villages round. Girls, chaperoned by their mothers and dressed in their best, walk up and clown the main street, employing all kind of arts to attract the selectors. From both sides fly fast jests, coma wit and criticism. “That’s the hair 1 would like,” says one. “What’s the use o'? the hair to you, fool, when you haven’t a head to put it on? ”■ At the end of the day very few of the girls are not pledged to be married. The lad grasps by the hand his new found treasure, who stands, as is prescribed by custom, demure, with head cast clown.

Soo the wedding follows. In separate processions they come to the church. Frequently the bride has to be carried there, for it is considered chic to be overwhelmed by loudly expressed grief. Streams of tears are shed, and tho bride eloquently pleads to postpone her marriage. .The bridegroom’s izba is bedecked with corn grass aud branches of trees, with festoons of rod, black, and yellow berries. The bride is presented with a packet of needles and thread, the bridegroom is presented by the bride with a whip, in token of submission to him. Invariably there follows the feast, on which the bride gives way to weeping, and the women sing songs praising the pleasures and bappines of unmarried life and lamenting tho trials of matrimony. The men eat and drink till they become unconscious.

In t. o sunny south the wedding is dih'erent from the melancholy north, hi the Ukraine a crowd of musicians surrounds the nuptial pair, and plays throughout the livelong day. The musicians are accompanied by a master of the ceremonies, bearing a white wand. Everybody is decorated with gay ilowers. Following the bridegroom comes the lovely maiden, carrying a sword thrust through a loaf of bread, a symbol that the bridegroom’s love will carry her through thick and thin. During too repast the cymbals, tambourines, and balaikas, a species of guitar, are hard at work’. Kasatzka, the chief dance, is performed, and the lately married couple joins in the ring. Finally all the girls of the village jdin hands, ami dance a graceful dance; dainty gestures, exquisite grace, colored dresses form brilliant red to purple and vivid green charm the onlooker.

1 u marriages and baptisms, death and burials, in home and field, the priest plays an important role. Ho blesses the ground and the first pieces of timber of the izba of the young couple; he sprinkles holy water on the fields. The priests, or the white clergy, in opposition to the monks, or black clergy,' form a secluded class, as they marry among their own class. 'They have no right to remarry, and educate their children in the seminaries. The education is one-sided; the Creek religion prohibits them from reading any book except tho breviary or from doing any work. As tho priests are ignorant, as they often drink or indulge in other vices, tho higher clergy treat them contemptuously. The peasants have a dislike for the clergy, and take every occasion to ridicule them. Though they kiss the priest’s hand, and ask his" blessing, they often give him a good drubbing. (To be continued.)